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"All-purpose" cleanup template proposal

I don't know if this idea has been discussed before, but it seems to me that the number of cleanup templates is growing to a point where it diminishes their usefulness.

For instance, consider a long, but very poorly-written article.

  • An editor could just add {{cleanup}}, or a similar template, but it says right there to try and be as specific as possible.
  • It needs grammar and spelling help, but the style, cohesion and tone are OK - thus, {{grammar}} and {{spelling}} are added, not {{copyedit}}.
  • An unstructured timeline is also present in the article - {{proseline}} gets added, too.
  • None of this mess is referenced, so {{unreferenced}} finds a home as well.
  • Etc, etc, etc, until the number or variety of applicable templates is so great that nothing is actually done.

Many of you may say, "not many articles are actually like this", but I just finished editing one; it was three pages long and included a lot of good, but poorly-presented, information. I could have added five or six cleanup templates to the thing. We need a way to display exactly what's wrong with the article, without displaying any unneeded criticism.

Therefore, I'm looking for input on the idea and help constructing an "all-purpose" cleanup template. I'm thinking the description page could look a lot like Wikipedia:Template messages, but without the template images. This template would include dozens of optional parameters, each corresponding to one particular problem that is right now represented by a whole template. The editor adding this "all-purpose" template to an article would simply choose the applicable parameters, just like s/he would choose templates right now - the difference is that the problems would be displayed in one template rather than cluttering the page with multiple images.

Thus, the aforementioned article might receive template code as follows: {{allpurposecleanup|grammar=yes|spelling=yes|proseline=yes|unreferenced = {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}

Then one template image would be displayed on the article, reading something like, "Multiple problems have been identified in this article." This would be followed by a bulleted (or otherwise) list determined by the parameters provided, e.g.:

  • This article needs a spellcheck
  • The grammar of this article should be corrected
  • An unstructured timeline is present in this article
  • This article does not cite any sources or references.

In summary: This template would relieve cleanup-template crowding by concentrating all cleanup messages into one concise and easily-navigable template. It would also clarify all template messages by including all messages that are needed, and none that aren't.

Whatcha think? PaladinWhite 00:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is potentially a good idea - multiple templates tend to clutter the article page, and this would certainly resolve that. I can't think of any major problems from a theoretical standpoint (although perhaps there are some WYSIWYG concerns with regard to use of the templates and their effect on editing the article) - are there any technical concerns that might need to be resolved? Carom 05:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a brilliant idea. The very core idea of template is to avoid repeating the same thing. Yet, this template explosion is exactly that. Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup illustrates the problem and is a good starting point. There are a few implementation detail questions I'd like to raise
  • In icon at all? Editor-overridable icon? One or many?
  • What will be the fate of the existing templates? Deletion? Transcluding the all-purpose template?
  • What about the templates on Wikipedias of other languages? Notify the ambassadors?
  • Shorter name than "allpurposecleanup"?
--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think this is a great idea. We use a similar multi-purpose template for {{WPAVIATION}} with a large number of parameters and multiple features, which eliminated the large number of sub-project templates. Dhaluza 02:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Let's do it.
  • One icon would be best, I'd say. Otherwise, let the icon be determined by the type of clean up as specified by the parameters.
  • Specific templates can be depreciated and, if they fall out of use, deleted.
  • Why not the name {{cleanup}}? Default to its current form.
JIMp talk·cont 23:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

SUGGESTION: "Remove unneccesary images" template

I suggest that we create a template which can be added to articles that are cluttered with an incredible amount of image.

example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Browser_wars

...I don't really know what images could be considered important there, but i can tell there are too many for the current article structure. A template for that would be a good thing in my opinion.

Tehniobium 12:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Here you go. {{Too many photos}} --Ipatrol (talk) 00:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Tech-term-ambig

On my wish list: User:Rursus/tech-term-ambig Reasons soon... Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 08:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC) User:Rursus/tech-term-ambig My reason: especially in computer science multiple meanings are wide-spread, the most commonly known example is between the programmers and the program marketers, causing mutual despise. For a fresh example see Talk:Text file, where a pretty harmonical discussion (except my hysteria) on term ambiguity occurs. When I saw the article on List (computing) and saw that LISP lists (which technically are pair trees) are confused with lists in general (a generic term on data arrays - approximately - with varying meanings), I saw the need of the template. May I?? Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It would belong to Contradiction and confusion. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I made a search among the template categories and found the nearest template to be Template:Contradict, but it doesn't refer to amboiguous definitions causing the contradiction. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 13:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:DPP doc pages needed

I just noticed a database lag situation that occurs because the templates are cross-included by (mostly, I'd infer) all referencing as a see also Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Cleanup. Since that page includes each template, updating the one causes an impact on all pages having cleanup templates. This line and such notes need to be in /doc pages insulated by a noinclude block wall. // FrankB 16:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

New plot summary tag

Hello. I'd like to recommend that a new plot summary tag be added for nonfiction works like documentaries. I ran across this plot summary for Michael Moore's Sicko: [1]. I was going to tag it with the plot summary tag, but then noticed that the tag only references fiction works. I don't know how to make or add tags, so could someone with more experience consider adding this? Thanks. Citadel18080 02:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

proposed article size template?

I might be missing it, or might be proposing, but I think we need an article size tag. This would recommend trimming article size, by copy-editing and/or forking pages. Objections? Support? Already exists?--Cerejota 11:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

We do have {{verylong}} already, which seems to do what you're looking for. Calliopejen1 12:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

new template- is this useful? should it be added here?

I just made {{primary source claim}} to stick in an article I'm cleaning up. Should this be added here? Does this already exist elsewhere? Calliopejen1 11:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Requested addition of cleanup template

Reasoning. The reason I'm proposing this cleanup template is that we currently have many templates to call attention to problems with specific images, but none to call attention to problematic uses of images in particular articles. A copyrighted image may be perfectly acceptable in one usage, but not in another. Some examples:

  1. An article about an actor with copyrighted screen captures of him in movie roles, being used to show what the actor looks like. (Example: Screenshots of James Bond films being used to illustrate the appearance of Sean Connery.) The images are fine under fair use to depict the fictional character, but not the actor. (Probably violation of WP:NFCC#1.)
  2. An article on a comic book character that contains 20 non-free images showing his appearances, where 2 or 3 would do the job just fine. Each individual image would be all right under fair use, but the aggregation is far more than is necessary for the article. (Violation of WP:NFCC#3a.)
  3. An article about a song containing screen captures of the song's video, solely showing the person singing. The screen captures don't increase the reader's understanding in a way words can't. (WP:NFCC#8.)
  4. An article about a music style that contains a gallery of album covers to illustrate discussion of the genre. The album cover images all have fair use rationales for their uses in articles about the particular albums, but most don't have rationales for use in this particular genre article. (WP:NFCC#10c).

Not a lot of Wikipedians are expert enough on our non-free content policy to perform cleanup on articles themselves, but it would definitely help if others could add this tag to articles which seem problematic. If nothing else, it will point editors toward the relevant policies. Also, categorizing these articles allows actual image policy experts to review them and determine whether or not there really is a problem. Videmus Omnia Talk 06:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Tried to cleanup the categories on this page

I fixed as many of the templates on this page as I could, I replaced all the [[Category:..]] without {{{category|...}} around them on all the templates that weren't fully protected. Gudeldar 18:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Use of icons

I recently added an icon to {{unreferenced}}; another user reverted it, and after some back-and-forth I think it would be a good idea to try to hammer out a quasi-official policy on the use of images in cleanup templates. --bdesham ★ 18:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll start. I think that icons should be included in all of the full-sized cleanup templates. As long as they are formatted properly, they don't change the size of the template, so that's not a valid complaint. I think that the instant recognition afforded by icons is very important and useful to editors—consider how hard it would be to tell apart all of these templates if they had no icons. Since the colors, size, and formatting are already standardized, the icons are really the only way to differentiate them quickly. --bdesham ★ 18:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

For me, I never look at the icons, I look at the text. If people don't want an icon on template:unreferenced (admittedly I am one of them), fine. Garion96 (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a long history of editors suggesting and not finding consensus for adding an icon to {{unreferenced}} you tried and did not find consensus on the talk page, and now you have moved the conversation away from the talk page of the template you want to modify in another attempt. When you still fail to find consensus then what, take it to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)? Jeepday (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I moved the discussion because people were claiming at Template talk:Unreferenced that the discussions on that page somehow applied to all other cleanup templates. It seemed that this would be a much more appropriate place to have that discussion, since more people are likely to see it here and we could potentially develop a policy to apply to all of the templates. I don't believe that a discussion on one template's talk page can validly be construed to apply to all of those other templates. --bdesham ★ 04:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that icons are generally a good thing and should be used in most cases. I also like the idea of a standardised style for each of the various template classes (in this case those for cleanup). However I have to say that the new icon is, to my eyes at least, quite at odds with the general WP iconset. Perhaps a general redesign might be worth thinking about, but at the moment the contrast between the highly graphical style of most existing icons, and the rather busier Image:Text document with red question mark.svg is something which doesn't really look terribly professional.
Having said that, I don't necessarily dislike the new icon (though I think the '?' could do with being bolder/larger). I'd certainly be interested in seeing any proposals for developing this new style to create a general theme, but piecemeal replacement of one or two icons at the expense of WP's present graphical coherence doesn't seem the best step forward.
Xdamrtalk 00:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I designed the icon you mention. I honestly never considered that Wikipedia has a consistent icon theme… looking at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup gives a ton of different types. No offense intended, but I don't think that there's any "graphical coherence" at the moment. Even within the citation templates: since I changed them all to use my icon, two templates have been changed to use different "question mark" icons, so that there are now three being used within that section alone.
I'm not complaining about my icon being removed, but the use of three different icons for the same thing is ludicrous. I would be more than willing to participate in discussions about a unified icon set. A good starting place would be an existing icon set; I'm partial to the Tango icons, as they're SVG and there are already a number of "standard" icons there. Anyone else interested in laying down some guidelines and/or actual graphics? --bdesham ★ 02:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, claiming there is blanket 'graphical coherence' is was probably a bit much - better to say that there is a generally coherent iconset out there, but that it is often not observed. Essentially it boils down to piecemeal, isolated changes to individual templates, when really we ought to have the big picture in mind. I too would happily contribute to a wider discussion on this issue, though my talents are less on the graphical side and lie more with criticising from the sidelines :) (Actually I know my way around Photoshop fairly well, but I have little familiarity with the field of vector graphics.)
As an interim measure, pending a full discussion, perhaps it might be a good thing to go around and re-impose some stylistic order using some of the existing icons?
Xdamrtalk 15:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Maybe start by making a list of template types that might be appropriate for the same icon. Then work towards a standard icon by category. I would hesitate to attempt to mandate an icon that must be used, but a standard for icons if one is used could be helpful. Templates like {{fact}} are not currently appropriate for an icon, others like {{clean up}} have an attractive and communicative icon. No offense intended to you Bdesham but every couple of months someone plays around with some photo tool makes a new icon, or finds a new icons and then decides it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Next they run around to every unprotected template and add their new icon without reading any of the talk page comments on the last similar attempts, or even seeking consensus before making the change. While it is good to be WP:BOLD in general, bold actions on templates can impact tens of thousands of articles at once and tend to bring less then warm receptions. Jeepday (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I see that now ;-) and no offense taken. My objectives in changing all the templates were to (1) use a more specific icon ("information i" vs. red question mark) on the templates that already used icons, and (2) add icons to the rest for consistency. Clearly there wasn't a very warm reception to my changes; I feel, though, that there should be a definite policy on this, instead of asking users to look at e.g. thirteen different talk pages. (Another thing we should consider is whether or not we really need 13 templates related to verifiability issues; there is a lot of redundancy in those templates.) Anyway, I look forward to helping with some kind of policy on this. --bdesham ★ 18:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that trying to build a policy on icons could be helpful to wikipedia. It would as you point out provide a primary location to address concerns and to point to for direction. I would strongly recommend not including discussion on combining templates in a discussion about icons. If you would like to take the lead on developing a policy I would be supportive of generating a policy, though you and I may have differing opinions on what that policy should be. I am still absorbing my recent experiences with a new policy attempt at Wikipedia:Requests for verification and am not ready to take the lead on something new currently. Of note you may notice that other then the immediate responses to your changes, only you and I have paid more then a passing notice of this topic. That could either mean that there is no significant interest in a policy about icon usage or that the has been a lengthy and failed discussion. I would suggest more research before considering the attempt. Jeepday (talk) 15:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed a similar string starting at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Template standardisation Jeepday (talk) 15:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Tango and SVG: This is just a note to concur with those who expressed a preference for Tango and SVG as part of a sound design strategy for standardizing template appearance. I have been doing something similar with WP articles, please take a quick look at User:Dreftymac/Docs/ImageDisclaimer#ImageNode_series. dr.ef.tymac 16:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't SVG cause problems with transparency on IE browsers, since it's converted to PNG by MediaWiki, and IE (pre 7.0) doesn't handle PNG transparency correctly?--Father Goose 18:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Why can't tags say either section or article?

Some tags allow you to specify if they are used for the whole article (with '|article') or just a section but many (most?) don't. Is it possible to alter them to specify it?--Svetovid 16:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Using {{unreferenced}} and {{unreferenced section}} as an example they are separate tags because they put articles into separate categories {Category:Articles_lacking_sources and Category:Articles needing additional references Respectively). Some tags are selectable for section or article in fact {{unreferenced}} used to be either or [2] until it was decided that it was only appropriate on article that had no references at all Template_talk:Unreferenced#Template_usage_no_references_and_undereferenced, you can see from the two category titles how this works out. Jeepday (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Come to think of it—if the category is the only reason for the separate templates, we should combine them into one template. The ParserFunctions can selectively put the article in one category or the other based on the parameters to the template. --bdesham ★ 02:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
{{Article issues}} does this sort of thing. Rich Farmbrough, 11:28 17 September 2007 (GMT).

For example, the template {{in-universe}} says "article or section" and you can't choose which.--Svetovid 02:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

TOC

This whoppingly large page needs a table of contents! Else a pain to navigate. Jidanni 00:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ummm... the MediaWiki software automatically generates one. Don't you see it? If not, check your preferences, under the "Misc" tab, for "Show table of contents". For more info, see WP:TOC. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

pointer to vandalism cleanup tags

Add a link to where one can find vandalism cleanup tags. The word 'vandalism' is nowhere to be found on the page. Jidanni 17:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

On the surface "This article or section reads like a review" is not clear to template user or viewer

For the "This article or section reads like a review" template, they click "review" to find out why somebody may be mad that their article sounds like a book review... only to find that their bland summary style article is now being accused of soapboxing. Therefore the word "review" is unclear. Jidanni 00:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Add "This article is written like a term paper"

Add a template: "This article is written like a term paper".

"What might have fooled your professor into grudingly letting you graduate shall not be dug up and fed into the encyclopedia verbatim."

Jidanni 00:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Template standardisation

The project to standardise the design of all the article message boxes is in its last stage. That is, all boxes like {{wikify}} etc is going to get a new look. We are just some day from starting to convert all article message boxes to the new standard. So pop over to Wikipedia:Template standardisation and have your say before it is too late. --David Göthberg 14:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

In-line template for citations broken

It's not very helpful to find {{Citations broken|date=March 2008}} applied to a whole article or section that has some good citations and some broken citations. Fixing the situation is more work than necessary. Sometimes I'd like to substitute an in-line notice of a broken citation clearly indicating which citation is broken. Accordingly, I have created Template:Citation broken and will try to figure out how to document it.

Would this be a good addition to this project? --Orlady 00:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

The whereisit description looks butchered

It currently reads like this:

"This about a place does not specify the where it is located."

On its actual article page, it fortunately properly says:

"This article about a place does not specify the country, city or region where it is located."

I didn't edit this page although this should obviously be fixed, but I currently don't have time to read into how you actually do edit it, as it's a bit more complex than directly fixing it -- using templates for the tables, etc. Can someone please fix this up? — Northgrove 21:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Add {{Confusing|date=March 2008}} tag?

Can we add this tag somewhere in this list of wiki tags?

WinterSpw 06:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

{{cleanup-confusing}} is in the list of tags. It redirects to {{confusing}}.

A tag already exists as: cleanup-confusing, and it looks exactly the same. --Ipatrol (talk) 00:53, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: image/map/diagram fix tag

How about: "One or more of the images, maps, or diagrams in this article needs repair or improvement."

I occasionally see articles where there are images, maps, etc that need improvement, such as:

  • Poorly lit photos of things that should be easy to get better images of, such as album covers
  • Scanned images used instead of a widget-created map
  • Diagrams, maps, etc with poor color choices, an unusable legend, etc

Having a tag like this would allow graphics-savvy people to search for them and do fixes. Bry9000 (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Another problem I've seen are diagrams that are straight up factually inacurate. From what I can find, the procedure to request fixing them is extremely arduous, involving drawing up a request at wiki commons. However, I think the solution would be, not to tag the article, but to tag the image itself. This way, there is less doubt as to which image is a problem, and other articles that link to the image automatically get the same tag. (The further ability to put articles using flagged images into a special category, like "articles using images in need of cleanup" would be nice, but I don't believe there is presently code to support such a feature.) -Verdatum (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with you that the image itself, not the article, should be tagged. Bry9000 (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I've found some templates for tagging these kinds of problems:

Proposal - "Selection criteria" tag

I've been doing a lot of cleanup of stand alone lists lately, and I frequently encounter the situation that there is no explicitly defined selection criteria for articles that should be considered "partial lists". Without this criteria, the list can become indescriminate and infinitely long. Then an article that could potentially be salvaged goes up for AFD. I believe this is worthy of a cleanup template that would go either in the section on lead sections, or the section on lists. Since selection criteria can be any number of things, the template should possibly reference the article's talk page so a concensus on the criteria can be reached. Thoughts on this idea would be appreciated. -Verdatum (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} pairs

The source of the page contains funny {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} pairs like this:

{{tlrow|fansite|{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}|category=Wikipedia articles needing style editing}}

Why is that? -- Ddxc (talk) 06:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Template Suggestion

Wouldn't a template for cleaning up uncited facts specifically be a great idea? GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 23:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think so and if there's one, it should say something like 'This article or section has too many unsourced statements'. Martarius (talk) 23:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization/restructuring

What's the difference? Peter jackson (talk) 12:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Need "remainder of section needs cleanup" template

There's already a remainder of article boiler... there should be a remainder of section boiler. Perhaps {{cleanup-section-remainder}}. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Inline version of off-topic template has been created

See Template_talk:Off-topic#Inline_version.3F. The template is {{Irrel}}.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

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